mini传媒

Published on December 27, 2023
Job titles and other details are as of the time of publication.
(The interview was conducted in Japanese and was thereafter translated into English.)

Starting with research on intergroup relationships with “conflict” as the keyword

My areas of expertise are social psychology, social cognition, and consumer behavior, and I am particularly interested in studying how being affiliated to a group affects a person’s emotions, attitudes, behaviors, cognitive functions, and satisfaction with life.

As a graduate student, my research mainly involved studying intergroup conflicts. In social psychology, there is the field of social cognition, which studies how an individual perceives others or other groups; then there is the subcategory of intergroup relationships, which focuses on groups, and that is where my career as a researcher began with the keywords of “conflict” and “guilt.”

Just as English speakers often use the expression “us or them,” there is a tendency for us as people to separate ourselves from others. But while we separate ourselves in this way, we can also feel guilty for an action taken by another member of the group we belong to; or we may hope that everyone in an opposing group will feel guilty for an act committed by a member of that group. It is the cognitive process where we sometimes equate ourselves to others, and at other times differentiate ourselves from other people. It is not uncommon for individual conflicts to develop into conflicts between groups. This means that understanding this individual cognitive process might also lead to solving conflicts between groups. In other words, such perceptions can cause conflicts between nations and peoples, but understanding them can also lead to solutions. This is the potentiality I felt in the study of intergroup conflicts.

Currently, I am further along with my research, and I now study how being affiliated to multiple groups can affect an individual’s cognitive and executive functions, and how this can contribute to their well-being. I will touch upon this research later.

Why do people just like me engage in conflicts, or become victims of conflicts?

Ever since I was a child, I have been interested in why countries are hostile to each other. My personal impression, which is entirely not based on any research, is that there have been more conflicts beginning and ending around the 1980s, when I was born. I remember going to a Robert Capa exhibition with my parents, catching glimpses of conflicts and war through his photographs, and wondering why such conflicts happen.

What interested me in particular was that the people shown in the photographs seemed to be no different to us. Why did those people engage in or become victims of conflicts or wars? When I was in high school, I watched the movie Hotel Rwanda, and this also had a deep effect on me. The story was about ethnic groups having a fallout and ending up killing each other, although they used to get along just fine. It strengthened my question of “Why does this happen?”

Meanwhile, I had also been interested in languages since I was a child; and seeing me working hard at English, my high school English teacher suggested I should go to college in the United States. My teacher introduced me to a university that was newly established in 2001, telling me I would be part of building the history of that university. With those words of encouragement, I flew to the United States.

Psychology has the potentiality to help resolve conflicts and wars

Even after starting my studies at an American university, the question, “Why do people fight each other?” still lingered in my mind. From economics to religious studies and international relations, there are all sorts of classes at university. Long-established subjects must have tried to resolve conflicts and wars in their respective fields, but they still happen. Why is that? I spent my days at university with this question at the back of my mind.

Meanwhile, my grades were by no means very good. Since I was surrounded by friends who wanted to go on to graduate school, I just assumed I would follow them without much thought. But it was unlikely that I would be able to meet the required grades, and I was feeling a hovering sense of anxiety, thinking that perhaps I should go back to Japan and find work. It was about that time that I went to the university library and discovered a book that would shape the rest of my life. It was a book compiled by Professor Martin Seligman, an authority on positive psychology. It had been written when he was the President of the American Psychological Association after being approached by the Croatian Psychological Association. The book compares cases in the 20th century that led to genocide with others that did not, and introduces psychological approaches that can be applied to avoid ethnic political conflicts in the 21st century. It made me realize that psychology could help resolve conflicts and wars, shedding light on the question I have had since I was a child. After reading the book, I decided to pursue a career studying psychology.

With the help of my psychology professor, I managed to attend a special class at UCLA, which was nearby. The leading expert in social psychology, Professor Bernard Weiner, was giving the lecture, and he told me about Professor Minoru Karasawa of Nagoya University, who was his family friend. So, after returning to Japan, I joined Professor Karasawa’s lab and studied intergroup conflicts, which I mentioned at the beginning. A few years later, a Rwandan researcher quoted my work in a paper on the Rwandan genocide. My thoughts on a question I have had since my childhood had provided a clue for an academic in a distant country, which had inspired me to pursue a career as a researcher. I was deeply moved and appreciative of this fact.

Cognitive and executive functions are enhanced when people change their identities for each group

I still continue to study conflicts and feelings of guilt in intergroup relationships, but I realize that my interest has shifted over the past few years. I now focus more on how an individual is affected by being affiliated to groups, although I do tell people that this is because intergroup conflict is a heavy theme, and I want to talk about something more cheerful. An individual does not belong to just one group; they are affiliated to various groups, such as their hometown, company, school, or other organization, as well as the area where they live, and their family. No other animal can belong to so many groups, and define themselves based on each group. So, rather than studying how people are affected by belonging to a certain group, I wanted to dig into how belonging to groups affects people, especially in a positive way.

To be specific, as I mentioned in the beginning, my research involves studying how belonging to more groups affects a person’s cognitive and executive functions and contributes to their well-being. At the moment, I am conducting empirical research to support the hypothesis that affiliation to more groups leads to better cognitive and executive functions.

When an individual belongs to various groups, it probably means that the individual has as many identities as there are groups, and they change their identities in their mind as they behave in each group accordingly. For example, you behave one way when you are in group A, you watch your language when you are in group B, and you might behave differently in a gathering with friends. I believe that this alternation of identities stimulates the brain, and belonging to various groups increases the number of your social identities, thereby enhancing cognitive and executive functions. Conversely, if a person stubbornly sticks to their own style no matter which group they belong to, they may find that cognitive and executive functions do not increase above a certain level.

So far, roughly 400 people have cooperated with each of our experiments regarding memory and belonging to multiple groups, and we have begun to see a correlation between being affiliated to multiple groups and increased cognitive and executive functions.

Hitotsubashi University is a wonderful environment where I have been able to increase my input from research and classes

After starting to teach students as a faculty member, I have noticed that the study of psychology in Japan tends to be recognized as clinical psychology. The theme of finding ways to help people with mental illnesses achieve remission is important in itself, but it is not the only area covered by psychology. In the United States, psychology is accepted as an empirical science and applied in the real world. For example, it is used in marketing, moving away from personal rules of thumb.

Therefore, I do feel the need to bridge this gap. But apart from this, working with the students of Hitotsubashi University has been a wonderful experience as I feel I have managed to make progress with my research with them. For example, when reading a book together with my students, there is no need for me to spend a week on preparation. We can simply look at the content and break it down together during regular classes or seminars. Because of this, I have been able to increase my own information input from classes and seminars, and this is why I believe I will be able to continue with my research and communicate with students in a fruitful way. I am very grateful for this environment.